Greenland

But ice-climbing remains one of my fondest memories in Ilulissat and I chose to submit this particular piece I wrote in remembrance of it for a travel scholarship application. Even if nothing came out of it, I’d like to think someone did read this somewhere…and liked it. No prerequisites. So said the guy at the tourist office. And it was very cool too, he added. His earnest talk reassures me, so I whip out my credit card and choose, in a moment of lunacy believing myself to be fit enough, to spend the afternoon ice climbing in an arctic winter in Ilulissat, Greenland. It’s a day later that I finally meet...

Miles is the sprightliest 79 year-old Brit I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He behaves decades younger than he really is, walks around with a bounce in his step and does everything that everyone under the age of 30 can do without much difficulty, toughing it out when it’s needed. The crisp London accent is still so very evident after living in New York for 36 years and talking to him is a little like talking to Michael Palin with a wicked, sharper edge (or on steroids) which can often serve as a highlight for the day – a hilarious instance being his incredulous reaction to a group of Asian...

The ancient settlement site of Sermermiut, where the Saqqaq, Early Dorset and Thule cultures lived and fished for seal and halibut in the nutrient-rich waters of the glacier is an easy kilometre south of Ilulissat, where a boardwalk cuts through its grassy slopes straight down to the waters of Ilulissat Kangerlua (Jakobshavn Icefjord). The last resident moved to Ilulissat in 1850, abandoning the site entirely. Today, it’s a UNESCO heritage site, complete with a warning not to stand too close to the shore in case a chunk of ice breaks off into the sea resulting in a tidal wave that I’m sure, has killed people before. We visited Sermermiut in a morning blizzard that unrepentantly...

“Let me tell you a little about myself,” said the guide from World of Greenland (a partner of Greenland Travel) at the very start of the cultural/historical walk around the town. “I first visited Greenland in 2007, fell in love with the country and came back again in 2008. This time, I fell in love with the dog-sled guide and moved here permanently. So you can ask me anything you want about Ilulissat.” That was probably the only snippet that was memorable; the rest was simply trivia that floated in a ear and exited the other. We walked mostly to the harbour, heard about when the ships came in, endured the smell...

At 180km inland, Kangerlussuaq is the most inland and thus coldest and warmest of the inhabited Greenlandic settlements. If anything, it was at least a welcome (but belated) explanation for the moment of horror that TC and I had when we first found out in Stockholm that the temperature was a whopping -36 deg. Celsius and thought that the weather app was at its most cynical self. It wasn’t the most romanticised introduction of Greenland – and definitely one not of the idyllic kayak-vacationer weaving his way among the floating icebergs, but a realistic cold-cock to the face that made us go on a pants/gloves buying spree in Copenhagen. Repeated checks of...

The Cranky Barbarian started out as a wide-eyed tourist who took her first steps in Europe and eventually metamorphosed into a grumpy introvert who still finds social interactions awkward. Am on social media only because people say it's necessary.